I laughed. “That’s right. You looked so mystified by the lightsaber. Damn, that was cute.”
“I liked the rides in the hotel room best,” Willow replied slyly, and I grinned at her. Our eyes met, and my heart started to hurt. I’d give anything to go back. “Well…”
“Yeah,” I murmured.
I watched Willow while she walked over and opened the door to the bedroom. She walked in and closed the door, and I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the couch. I was committing myself to another night of no sleep when the door of the bedroom opened again. I looked over at Willow, but she didn’t say anything. She just stood in the doorway until I got up off the couch and entered the room, and she shut the door behind us.
2
Willow
Alexis crying jolted me awake. The sound of her crying while I rushed her into Ricky’s arms when strange men broke into my home in California still haunted me. Moms were innately designed to hear their babies crying, even in the dead of sleep, and now I heard it twice as clearly. I tossed my blankets back and prepared to climb out of bed when reality finally settled in. I wasn’t hearing Alexis crying. She was in Maine, and I was in Philly. I picked up my pillow and held it against my chest and closed my eyes. If I tried hard enough, I could pretend I was holding my baby in my arms again. It’d been almost six months of only seeing her through video calls. My heart was breaking, I just wanted to be with her again. I knew it was for the best. She was safer there with Ricky, Sasha, Kelly, and her cousins, but I was nearing the end of my rope. I was ready to put all of this behind me.
I set my pillow down, and the feeling of Alessandro’s arms around me ghosted against my skin. I looked back to the other side of the bed, but as expected, he also wasn’t there. His presence around me wasn’t something I dreamt. Despite knowing better, when I walked into the bedroom last night with the memories of our honeymoon on my mind, I acted against my better judgment and invited him in to spend the night with me. I shouldn’t have, I knew that, but when it came to Alessandro, my resolve was relatively low. I missed having him in bed with me, I missed sleeping with him, and I missed everything about him.
Alessandro and I had been separated for about six months, little did his brothers and their wives know. We’d made the decision, or rather, I’d made it for us right before the Binachis kidnapped and tried to kill us. We’d been putting on a front, pretending that everything was okay for our family, but behind closed doors, Alessandro and I were the worst we’d been in ten years. When he was his normal self, things were fine, but something had snapped in Alessandro around the time I got pregnant, and he’d been battling some form of mental illness that he refused to get diagnosed or medicated. It may be bi-polar disorder or maybe split personality disorder, but when it came to the business, Alessandro turned into an entirely different man. I asked him more than once to get it checked out, but when I found out he was making trips out of town for work and was really coming back to Philly to involve himself in the family business, I reached the end of my rope.
I told him I wanted a divorce.
Ultimately, it was divine intervention that the Binachis showed up a few days later to kidnap me. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have come to terms with the necessity of the organization in our lives, at least until the Binachis could be appropriately dealt with. We put all talk of a formal divorce on hold and decided to continue pretending for the time being. The only people who knew Alessandro and I weren’t really together were Ricky and Sasha, the two people in my life I told everything. All of the Varassos still thought we were together, still thought we were retiring to the same bed every night, and that was the way we wanted to keep it for now. We didn’t need to throw any other raw emotions into an already boiling-over pot.
When I found out Alessandro was taking on the head of the family, I was furious. It was like he was basically telling me to my face that he didn’t care about me, our daughter, or our family. I agreed to be with him on the condition that he was done with the organization, and he thanks my flexibility for allowing him to be involved to the end of protecting our family by taking on the most important role? I told him that I would be by his side every step of the way, and after that, I was done.
I knew his brothers were just as traumatized by their upbringing as he was, and they were no more trustworthy as confidants than Alessandro was. He needed someone in his corner to make sure that he didn’t run off and get himself killed. I loved him too much to do anything less than that, but we were fast approaching the day when we would have to break the news to the family that we weren’t going to be together anymore. The thought of it broke my heart, but my stress level was already above bursting. For my daughter, and for me, I had to part ways with the only man I ever loved.
I shook the depressing thoughts out of my mind and got out of bed. I pulled on my orange and pink silk robe and walked out of the bedroom. Alessandro was still asleep on the couch, so I walked into the small kitchen behind the living room and got to work on some coffee and breakfast. I pulled down a couple of mugs and set them aside, and then I pulled bacon and eggs out of the fridge. As it usually did, the smell of bacon sizzling on the stove stirred Alessandro from his slumber, and without saying much of anything, he got up from the couch and sat down at the table in the kitchen. I poured a glass of coffee and set it down in front of Alessandro before pulling the first pieces of bacon and eggs from the pan and sliding them onto a plate.
I set the plate in front of Alessandro, and he grumbled, “Thanks,” at me.
“You’re welcome,” I replied, before returning to the stove to prepare food for myself.
I sat down at the kitchen table opposite Alessandro, where we sat and ate breakfast in total silence. I wanted to say something about last night, how it was the last time and we can’t do it again, but it probably wasn’t necessary. He knew how I felt about it, and it was my fault, anyway. On top of that, I’d said the same thing dozens of times already and hadn’t stayed true to my word yet. I let the silence linger until Alessandro finished his breakfast.
“I’m nervous about this guy Marco wants to use,” he admitted.
I looked up. “Is he that bad?”
“Bad enough that my dad didn’t want to use him anymore. I’ll admit, he can dig shit up like no one’s business, but he’s always got an angle. It’s kind of like a genie. You have to be careful how you word stuff. Otherwise, he’ll give you the version of what you want that benefits him most.” He shook his head. “He almost killed Marco once. Marco was pissed because he asked him to find us a place to do business, and he found one in a lot that he knew was watched by the cops. He was hoping Marco wouldn’t figure it out, and then he could leverage the information against us. When Marco found out, he snapped, and the guy tried to kill him.”
“How did Marco not kill him?” I asked.
“Marco may be a bit of meathead, but he’s far from dumb. The reason this guy is so good at finding shit out is because he runs in several circles. He’s a lot of people’s ace in the hole. He didn’t want to make more enemies by taking out the city’s main rat.” He took a sip of his coffee. “It’s the oddest position of power.”
“Is it even worth it, then? If Ma
rco still can’t handle him if he needs to, what’s the point?”
“We’re already in a bad spot with the Binachis and the Carduccis, the main ones who use him, so there’s no additional risk to holding a gun to his head and telling him to just fucking do it.”
The way Alessandro spoke about taking a man’s life was terrible. It was the exact thing I didn’t want him to get involved in. This personality, the one that was a frightening amount like Alessandro’s deceased father, Angelo, was the one I could no longer stay married to.
“We haven’t talked at all about what we’re going to do about the Carduccis,” I replied.
Alessandro shook his head. “Something else is up Anthony’s ass. He’s not this pissed just because Gabriel stood him up.”
“He’s pissed because you threatened him.”
“He’s more pissed because of that, but he was in a snit before. I don’t think he ever intended to work with us.” Alessandro finished off his coffee. “I’ve gotta figure that out first. I’m hoping if we take out Dario, he’ll be willing to put a few cards on the table so that we can call a truce.”